Improve Your Workspace to Improve Your Business

While visiting Thailand this fall, I was inspired by a very impressive “office.” It wasn’t in a high rise or some other sleek building. Instead, it was an office I rode in from the airport! It was a taxi – complete with beautiful posters, and mantras, and mala beads, and Thai traditional flower offerings.

As I was riding in the cab, I told the driver how impressed I was with how he decorated the place, and he said, “I did this because this is my office and I’m really grateful to have work.” What an amazing way to honor how you make a living!

In this week’s episode of She Takes on the World TV, I’m going to talk about three easy improvements you can make to your own workspace to create a more sacred and inspiring environment for your business to flourish! Watch it right here:

Let’s recap. The three easy ways I recommend for improving your workspace are:

Find a way to honor your work. Keep a gratitude journal, have a ritual of giving thanks each morning. It’s important to in some small way honor exactly where you are right now.

Kick the sitting-all-day habit! Use a stand-up workstation (or create one yourself), and when you do have to sit, try using an inflatable exercise ball. You’ll be amazed at the difference this makes!

Stimulate your senses. Introduce candles, colors, and music into your work environment and let the magic happen!

I have an actionable for you this week, and it involves some slight adjustments to your workspace that I think will make a big difference in your life and your business. I would love for you to share one tip you have for creating a sacred workspace, and one improvement you still need to make so come on over to the comments. See ya there!

49 thoughts on “Improve Your Workspace to Improve Your Business”

Love the new stuff – outtake and music in the background. Great additions to already great videos! Would you be willing to post a picture of you at your standing work station (maybe on FB or Twitter)? I’d love to get a better idea of that. What a great idea!!

What a great story! I am treating myself today and having my house cleaned. They aren’t touching my office but this was good inspiration for me. I realized with the digital age, I don’t have actual photos in frames of my family, so that’s what I’m starting with.

Not sure why, but I’ve been having a lot of trouble using the comment box here. The name, email and website fields don’t show what I’m typing, though they remember what I wrote last. But when I go to prompt them, it types over the remembered field. Anyone else having this issue?

The website runs best in Chrome and in Firefox so it may be a browser issue, but I just tested it across a few different platforms and I can’t replicate that problem. We’ll see if anyone else is experiencing it and then we can take a look. Thanks for letting us know!

Thank you for looking – I’m using Firefox, but I will try Chrome next time or see if my computer savvy brother can help me fix this! LOL!!! (And I look forward to the pic of the standing work station – thank you!)

I am having this problem as well. I am using Firefox. I just have to submit and trust my name, email and website are in there correctly. I can’t see what I am typing in those fields, which is why my name is repeated twice on my other comment on this post.

My favorite advice is “stimulate your senses”! We tend to see our workspace as something that’s supposed to be neutral and fear that colors/stimulations become distracting. The contrary is also true! No stimulation and a bland workspace can be just as unproductive. The hardest part is to find the right balance.

I’ve wanted to try scented candles on my desk for a while so thanks for the reminder! I’ll implement and tell you how it went.

My ritual is turning on my “Happy Light” – which is full-spectrum. This charges me up and gives me a burst of energy right away. I also turn on an aromatherapy diffuser and add in stimulating scented oils to it. I like your idea about modifying a table in order to make a stand-up work station.

My office looks out on to mountains and trees and the colours and scenery really work to calm me and energize me at the same time.

Thanks for the great tips! I’m going to bring my laptop with me tomorrow and configure a standing desk for when I’m replying to customer inquiries. I may consider adding some colour too, maybe some picture frames. I will continue to listen to music but change it up! 🙂

I actually loved the idea of using a stability ball to sit on while you type away at your computer, that way you are incorporating your ab core muscles and can do a bit of bouncing to wake you up a bit. Long hours in front of the computer can be exhausting!

Thanks Natalie – Great video! I fully agree that sitting all day long takes a toll on our bodies yet it’s crazy how many people continue to work this way. I’m guilty of this myself, but this week I’m going to start taking breaks more often to give myself a chance to really stretch and get rid of all that tension.

I kinda feel awesome about having all three already implanted. Candles are a must to me (if you have cats, don’t overuse a diffuser, you cat’s kidneys need a break from EO every other day or they could get sick), I too use a bar table from Ikea (my dinner room was reconverted as my office, so this is per chance) and I alternate sitting/standing throughout the day. Finally, I use little quartz pieces with different colours. Every morning, I pick one with the colour that I want to be influenced by for my work and put it in front of my screen. I find it very helpful! Blue, turquoise, pink, red, yellow… Every color has a meaning 🙂

I’m very curious about the article you mentioned. Could you link it, please?

Thanks for this post! I had fallen out of the practice of lighting candles to set the tone. However, after watching your video I got them out and am now sitting at my desk with candles lit and inspired to get to work 🙂

Hi Natalie, thanks for raising a really great subject. How your environment looks and feels has a direct response on your mood and energy levels. Especially for entrepreneurs, it is important to have images around us that inspire and help move us forward on a daily basis, whether that’s photos of our friends and families, beautiful pieces of art or images of destinations we would love to travel to. By surrounding yourself with objects and images which inspires you in your purpose will have a hugely positive effect on your productivity, influence and connection to who you are. By placing yourself in a beautiful environment (a beautiful view is a gift) which inspires, supports and energises will absolutely come across when connecting with clients, whether they come into your office physically or just via the phone or net. Whether repainting, introducing a colourful rug or cushions or simply bringing in art and images. It’s a transformative process that anyone can try! Great topic Natalie.

I love diffusing citrus essential oils in my work space. Not only do they smell wonderful, but the science has shown that they will boost your mood and improve work productivity. Plus clients always comment on how my office always smells great !

I LOVE this Natalie! Today I spent an entire day decorating my office with mantras, an inspirations and high fives board from clients and love letters from my little ladies. And my gorgeous man just gave me the most delicious birthday present which now joins me in my workspace to make it feel super special. He repaired and restored my Dad’s old lamp stand from the 1950s and found the most perfect poppy shade for it. Together with the candles, family pics and my brainstorming wall, I walked back in this afternoon and felt “ahhhhh, now that is a lovely space to crate magic from”. I also just changed from a tall-but not tall enough to be a standing desk, to a lower desk with swiss ball – my back is soooo much happy now (but my clients are a little disturbed by me bouncing during coaching sessions on Skype!). makes me feel like a kid again! Love your videos! x Kylie

Sitting all day is my worst habit! Inflatable exercise ball it is. I’m going to track one down soon. I have a great chair (Herman Miller) which I adore. It will be hard to kick the habit. The other stuff I’ve been working on for a while. I have my gratitude/creativity journal. And I love my work space! I have crystals, art, and so many things that help to inspire me.

Thanks for watching 🙂 A great chair is such an important investment. $100 chairs just don’t cut it when you’re going to sit in it all day. It also annoys me when companies buy crappy chairs for their employees…

Love these suggestions, Natalie. I light a few candles in my home office studio and play soothing music like Antonio Carlos Jobim or Melody Gardot. One adjustment I’ll make is adding a ritual whenever I enter my studio. I’ll take a few seconds to feel thankful that I’m able to do the work I love.

Natalie, I’m a HUGE fan of sacred office + work spaces. I simply cannot function among clutter + mess and so I have decorated my “Creative Nook” will many precious bits and pieces. I’m also in the process of creating a sacred travel box – for on-the-road instant office bliss. Can’t wait to implement. 🙂

This has completely inspired me to go to my boss and ask if I can switch my desk chair for an exercise ball. Being sedentary is my only bad habit health wise, and the one I have the least control over.

I also want to start making infused water to have on my desk, and introducing an diffuser to make my desk smell nice.

Awesome. I’m moving this weekend and planning out my new office. It’s overwhelming and exciting all at once and I can’t wait to put these tips into play. I absolutely love lighting candles and listening to music while I work!!

I want to go to Thailand just to hail that taxi driver and work out of his cab! 🙂 I definitely like to have inspiring, personally meaningful mantras in sight that serve as a swift kick-in-the-brian when needed.
What would I add to my workspace? COLOR. Pinterest has me itching to rebuild my entire home office!

Nice Blog. I already say “Thank You” each morning when I first sit at my desk, when one of my proposals is accepted and each check I cash. I will however include saying “Thank You” when I write out a check. I need to always be grateful that there is enough money in the business account to cover all of my expenses. I also will start to write down in a separate journal each project I am awarded this year. This will be a wonderful “reminder” and tool to look at next January when work is usually slow in my industry. My office is already yellow, but I will de-clutter this weekend. Thanks for the push!

I appreciate hearing your perspective on the importance of restoration. I agree with your message and hope other trainers take plenty of time to read it and realize that promoting time to recover is as important as time spent working out.

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